[SCCC] Antenna Challenge

[Mark Schoonover]

Good evening,

Hoping the collective of SCCC can give me some assistance. I'm looking
at participating in the ARRL 160M contest this weekend. The antenna is
a 33' of shorted ladder line with a 40M full wave loop at the top
antenna. I put down as many radials as I could, some are close to 1/4
wave on 160 but most are lucky to be 1/4 on 40.

I have an IC-7600 attached to a LDG 1000proII tuner. I can get a good
match all across 160M <1.3:1 on the tuner's built-in SWR meter but the
meter on the rig is >3:1 and power folds back. I have the tuner right
next to the rig with RG-213 from DXE between the two. There's 1" braid
from tuner->rig->ground rod outside. When I take the LDG out of line
and use the rig's built-in tuner,  I can get 1.4:1 across the band.

I initially thought it was RFI getting back into the rig because the
antenna is about 5' from the radio desk. I put mix 43 chokes on every
cable entering the rig. No luck on that front but it sure did reduce
RFI.

So any ideas what this could be? I'm scratching my head on this one...

Thanks for reading!

73! Mark KA6WKE

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